


Don’t Insult My Intelligence: An Open Letter to Steven Moffat About Respecting His Fan Base

by TheNavelTreatment



Series: Open Letters to Moffat [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Analysis, Meta, Social Commentary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 15:25:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1161304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNavelTreatment/pseuds/TheNavelTreatment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A reflection on the relationship between the creators of Sherlock and it's fan base, and why the fourth wall was so important in the first place</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don’t Insult My Intelligence: An Open Letter to Steven Moffat About Respecting His Fan Base

 

> I don’t know what they’re talking about, I thought it was watertight. What were they complaining about? … I think people have come to think a plot hole is something which isn’t explained on screen.  **A plot hole is actually something that can’t be explained**. … Sometimes you expect the audience to put two and two together for themselves. For Sherlock, and indeed for Doctor Who, I’ve always made the assumption that the audience is clever.
> 
> \- Steven Moffat in  _The Telegraph_

He’s right, a really good cliffhanger leaves the audience scrambling for the answers themselves. I’m part of the  _Lost_  generation, and I still fondly remember the summer after the first season aired, with everyone trying to figure out exactly what just happened. But to quote the man himself, “Data! Data! Data! I can’t make bricks without clay!” If I’m going to draw my own inferences about what happened, I need a solid basis to start from, and I don’t think the explanation of The Fall given in  _The Empty Hearse_  provided that. But maybe my frustrations stem from a misunderstanding of what I thought a plot hole was, which Mr. Moffat has so graciously pointed out. So looking back, I ask myself, are there any parts of TEH explanation which actually can’t be explained? The short answer? Yes. 

**The kidnapper bearing a strong resemblance to Sherlock Holmes**.

In the explanation Sherlock gives Anderson, when he’s explaining where the extra corpse came from (which doesn’t make sense in and of itself, as Sherlock could have just laid down on the pavement and had blood sprayed all over him, but I’ll leave that issue alone), he says, “But I deduced Moriarty must have found someone who looked very like me to plant suspicion, and that that man – whoever he was – had to be got out of the way as soon as his usefulness ended.” Okay, this makes sense. Now, if you go back to TRF, whenever they’re discussing the kidnapper, at the school, at the factory, later in the hospital, he’s always referred to in the singular; it’s always THE kidnapper or HE was waiting for them. Now this isn’t a problem right? The one kidnapper must have been someone who looked like Sherlock right? Nope.  _Because we saw the kidnapper_. We flashback to the kidnapper going into the school when John and Sherlock are discussing the situation in the cab. Up until this point, whenever flashbacks had been used in a case, what we see in the flashback is actually what happened. But the kidnapper we see in the flashback looks nothing like Sherlock Holmes. So while a lot of people theorized that a man who looks like Sherlock was involved, if we follow the syntax (which the writers of the show had always been so careful about) and follow the rules that have governed flashbacks thus far, this can’t have actually happened. In the story we’re told in TRF, there’s no room for someone who looked like Sherlock in the scenario to provide a corpse.

**What about the sniper aimed at John?**

This is an even more definite example of something that couldn’t have actually happened. At the end of TRF, we see the sniper who is aiming at John lift his gun out of the window, take it apart, and walk away. Presumably because he saw Sherlock jump off the building and that called off the kill shot. That makes sense right? You would think so, but when Anderson asks, “And what about the sniper aiming at John?,” Sherlock answers, “Mycroft’s men intervened before he could take the shot. He was invited to reconsider.” We see a flashback to the sniper aiming at John in the scope of someone else’s rife, and then it cuts to Mycroft answering a phone saying, “Is it done? Good.” Mycroft, who is the British government. Mycroft, who not-so-subtly informed Irene Adler about all the people they had who could force information out of her. Mycroft, who watched (and perhaps participated in) the torture of Moriarty for information for weeks. We’re supposed to believe that this man gave the order to lock in on a world-class assassin, who was about to kill the best friend of his brother, but then decided not kill him? They bought him off, and then let him go? He let one free agent walk around who knows that Sherlock survived? WHAT? How did that conversation go, “Hi please don’t shoot we’ll pay you some money and then let you go on your way. Pretty please don’t tell anyone Sherlock survived so he has two full years to take down your old bosses’ criminal empire.”

These are just two instances that stand out to me that are presented as explanation that simply could not have happened. Not even because in the real world they don’t make sense (If you want to make that argument, I have two words for you: [medical shock](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_\(circulatory\))). Moffat is quick to remind us that this is, after all, just a TV show. “It is of course made up – it’s not real. That isn’t even really Baker Street. And you know what, Benedict Cumberbatch – he doesn’t solve crimes at all. I’ve checked repeatedly. He’s rubbish at it.” (Oh no - does that mean he’s not really a dragon either? Damn.) What bothers me is that these are things that could not have actually happened  _based on the rules Moffat and Gatiss have themselves created for the world of Sherlock_. For the first two seasons, flashbacks were always reliable indicators and Mycroft wouldn’t leave any loose ends. We’re presented with a solution that contradicts what we as a fan base have accepted as fact thus far; not a very stable basis to form our own assumptions.

If only the plot holes were the worst of it. No, we also have to deal with what I call the “forgotten plot.” For a lot of people, myself included, how Sherlock survived was only one of the questions waiting to be answered. The other being; what exactly was Moriarty playing at? Yes, we pretty much figured out the “Stayin’ Alive,” but what about the I.O.U.? Did Sherlock know that the computer key code was fake? Did Rich Brook really get to him? Why the fairytales? What was it about Sherlock’s final words on the roof that made Moriarty pull the trigger? In short, I was waiting for it to all come together; the way all the pieces have fallen into place for the past two seasons. Instead we get:

> The criminal network Moriarty headed was vast. Its roots were everywhere like a cancer, so we came up with a plan. Mycroft fed Moriarty information about me. Moriarty in turn gave us hints – just hints – as to the extent of his web. We let him go … because it was important to let him believe he had the upper hand. And then I sat back and watched Moriarty destroy my reputation bit by bit. I had to make him believe he’d beaten me, utterly defeated me, and then he’d show his hand.

That’s it. That’s all we get in regards to the build up. Over an hour of twists and turns compressed into 6 sentences. And then moving on to how he jumps off the roof. Which means everything Moriarty put together, all of Andrew’s brilliant performance, was  _filler_? (I mean, my God, he was on kid’s TV!) We were supposed to be mildly entertained but then forget about it? That’s disappointing to me in the way that busy work was disappointing when I was in school; even if it was interesting, it still felt like a waste of time. With no payoff. Based on this brief explanation, I think two conclusions could be drawn:

**(1) Sherlock knew it would eventually come to his death and was faking the entire time.**

This undercuts the character development we see throughout the episode. If Sherlock was never really planning on having to face death to save his friends, that makes it not really a sacrifice. The changed Sherlock at the beginning of series 3 is a function of the emotional turmoil he experiences in TRF; the doubt that creeps into his mind, the thrill of seeing him going up against a mind as great as his own, indeed a mind that could be his own if no for the influence of his friends. In canon, Moriarty is Sherlock Holmes’ equal; if in this version Sherlock was faking the whole time, Moriarty is reduced to little more than a madman and certainly not the worthy advisory he’s meant to be. 

**(2) Moriarty had Sherlock on the edge the whole time, and he didn’t pull it together until the final hour**

This I think is much more likely. Sherlock knew Moriarty would eventually bring him down, but he didn’t know how. He knew his reputation would be destroyed, but he didn’t know to what extent. Maybe he really did think there was a computer key code (after all, why would he have John come to St. Bart’s if he didn’t honestly think there might be a way out) ; maybe he knew that to bring Moriarty down might require the ultimate sacrifice. He really is caught in Moriarty’s web; even though he knows roughly what’s going to happen, it still gets to him. Following this line of thinking, it’s safe to say that Sherlock figures out Moriarty’s endgame outside Kitty’s house when he goes, “He’s been sowing doubt into people’s minds for the last twenty-four hours. There’s only one thing he needs to do to complete his game, and that’s to …” But see, taking that as true, we run into one of those things-that-actually-can’t-be-explained issues. Because Sherlock goes to see Molly and John confronts Mycroft, which means Mycroft, Sherlock, and Molly only have about 4 or 5 hours in the middle of the night to figure out a plan before Sherlock has John meet him at St. Barts. 4 or 5 hours in the middle of the night. To “vigorously work out” 13 scenarios. Scenarios so detailed they include things like, IF Moriarty dies and IF there is a sniper and IF I have to jump and IF John comes back at the right moment and IF I get him to stand in the exact right spot. 4 to 5 hours in the middle of the night. This faces the same problem that Christopher Nolan faced in  _The Dark Knight Rises_  trying to convince us that Bruce Wayne, after miraculously curing his own broken back, climbed out of a hole in the Middle East with nothing but the clothes on his back yet made it into the quarantined city of Gotham on the other side of the world 2 days later;  _some things just aren’t possible and if you expect the audience to swallow it, we feel like we’re being treated like 5 year olds and being patronized, neither of which are good things._

But Moffat thinks we’re clever! We should put 2 and 2 together! Which I am more than willing to do, when I have something to work with. But when basic assumptions go against reason in a show that’s always been absolutely rational, I get a little frustrated. When issues that have bugged me the whole hiatus get completely ignored, I get very frustrated. I mean, if the plot of TEH had been mind-blowing, maybe I could have gotten over it, but as it was essentially V-for-Vendetta-minus-Natalie-Portman, I don’t even have that! Maybe before the internet, before a worldwide community that compared notes, they could have gotten away with it. But if Moffat knew the fans were smart, he must have known we would pick apart the show. That we would screen grab and analyze and debate. That we would re-watch TRF and realize there were things that didn’t quite match up. It’s like we’re chastised for not trying in one ear and being told we’re thinking too hard in the other.

 Now, I suppose maybe I’m rushing to judgment; maybe with Moriarty slotted for potential return, some of my questions will get answered. But that makes it almost worse. That means we’ll be waiting for an answer to the same cliffhanger for what, like 4 years? I’ll get my law degree in less time. This says 2 things about the series as a whole. Either (1) the creators are so self-absorbed that they think the viewers are so enthralled they’ll stick around no matter what to see what happens next, or (2) they really don’t have any new ideas and they’re hoping no one notices. Again, neither of which are good things.

I have been able to draw some deductions from the big reveal; that Moffat is the ultimate ruler of the world he’s created. That he can change the rules whenever he wants ( I mean, it’s been hinted at in a couple of interviews that the explanation Sherlock gives at the end wasn’t entirely true). That he decides what’s important and what, on second thought, should really just be ignored. Which is fine, but what room does that leave for the fans? Yes, what he’s created is wonderful, and up until this point it has been very enthralling. But TV shows are nothing without viewers; 9.2 million people tuned in, looking forward to having their questions answered, their theories validated (or not). What we got in return was a vague sort of half explanation, and a rap on the wrist to accept it and move on. But if the cliffhangers don’t come with  answers, then why waste time getting involved? Why fall in love to be let down? If we know our passion isn’t going to pay off, what incentive do we have to tune in to season 4?

[Big thank you to Ariane DeVere for her lovely transcripts [here](http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/64895.html).]

 


End file.
